It‘s Christmas Eve and Ben (Lucas Hedges) suddenly appears in the driveway. After shortly hesitating, Holly (Julia Roberts) runs to her son with open arms. His sister Ivy remains sceptical and Ben‘s explanation of why he suddenly appeared, on foot, doesn‘t sound believable. Especially because the family wanted to visit Ben at the rehab for young addicts where he lives the next day. But no matter, Ben is here now. His two small siblings are extremely happy, the adults clear away their valuables and medication, and Holly tells Ben in no uncertain terms: he can stay for a day, but she won‘t leave him out of her sight for a second. Of course that goes wrong.

Ben and Holly go through a tour de force of emotions in the next 24 hours. The somewhat overly constructed screenplay manages to fit an entire drug career in that time. Old antagonists appear and force Ben and Holly to cover the stages of addiction. There‘s the AA group that Ben left when he started to get agitated. He dealt with a girlfriend in this house, he stole from that house. The night pharmacy doesn‘t sell any emergency medication but a lot of opioids. And his ex-dealer still has a hold on Ben... The way you will feel about the film mostly depends on how you feel about Julia Roberts, who upstages everyone here as the tough, emotional mother. Lucas Hedges (MANCHESTER BY THE SEA, and BOY ERASED in February) also performs well. The rapid emotional ups and down in the compressed story, that becomes more of a crime thriller towards the end, don‘t always work. The ambivalence of a junkie, however, the question of whether you can trust your son, brother, and friend, or whether you‘re being manipulated, which is the actual drama of the film, is played in a confident way by Hedges.

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Translation: Elinor Lewy